Mudlowe

Another take on a Raymond Chandler movie has arrived and I want a piece of the action.

My name is Oscar Mudlowe, not to be confused with Moscar Ludlow whose mail keeps getting delivered to my office. I’ve never met the fellow, but if you know him, please have him straighten out this business with the post office.

Those Hollywood movie people used to sit on the front stoop of their bungalow offices on sunny days, exchanging tall tales and congratulating one another on the exceptional California weather. It sure beats Pittsburg! Sunny, cloudy, I don’t get to sit outside. I’m holed up in my office, waiting for a new client to telephone or some hot dame with a problem to beat a path to my office door.

These things happen.

Many glamorous Beautiful People flock to Hollywood and sometimes some of them get into scrapes. I consider myself a scrape eliminator. I’m a P. I. but some folks say my services are P. U. Let them take their trade elsewhere. I don’t work for bellyachers. You want a referral? I’ll even give you a referral. Anything to get you out of my hair, off my calendar, your card eliminated from my Rolodex and all memory of you expunged. Poof! U R so gone! That’s how I stay busy and solvent. Deadheads like you I don’t need.

Some perps have accused me of ineptitude. To them, I plainly state, “Lookee what it says on our office door, etched into the glass:

Graham,

Crackers

&

Son

I am the son in that statement.”

Old man Graham and the Cracker family represented the two extremes here in SoCal: Old Money and poverty, the Amazing Blue Ribbon 400 and ditchdiggers. They let my dad Murray join their landscaping business. When they went belly-up in the drought of ’87, they segued into private investigation.

Coming into my office, she looked a treat. Dames like her I need. They keep me solvent. The bank accounts of their fiancés provide a constant source of renewal. She had the good gams, blond hair and chiseled good looks prevalent among dames of Austro-Hungarian descent.

“ ’Scuse me, lady,” I said, sitting behind my desk. “Are you possibly of Austro-Hungarian descent?”

“I’m from Argentina,” she replied coldly.

I pitch ’em like I see ’em. Sometimes I am so on the money. Other times, dead wrong.

Over my desk, I have a framed testimonial from Chief Running Bird of the Comanche Tribe. It says:

Him uniform a gray trenchcoat

Him stamina in reserve

Him make haste to find

Every single guilty perv.

“What can I do for you, lady?” I asked.

“I ordered a bookcase from a Swedish furniture manufacturer and it seems to have disappeared,” she enunciated, sucking down great clouds of cigarette smoke.

Sometimes in the course of human events, everything gets all screwed up. “Sounds like a job for their service department,” I suggested.

“It was a very expensive bookcase.”

“I charge $50 an hour. I don’t intend to work seven days a week on your case. I’ll provide an itemized account, how many hours on which days, gas money, incidental expenses.”

“What about dental?” she asked, lightning bolts flashing from her icy blue eyes.

“Get real.”

“You’re hired,” she replied.

I figured there was probably a lot more to this bookcase angle than meets the eye. There are some bad dudes in this burg. Some pretty shady characters occupy nooks in the furniture trade. A lot of the fentanyl powder and pills hitch a ride on furniture deliveries. Saves on gas. Postage and handling. Taxes. I could see where a lot of digging will uncover some pretty ugly skeletons from Davy Jones’s closet. I know this stuff. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.

If you don’t have a car in L.A., you’re toast. When I went to her bungalow at the Chateau Marmont that evening to report on my progress, she didn’t seem all that interested in furniture. I got a definite vibe that loose lips would sink ships and prices on villas in Topanga Canyon have skylined. You have to be a movie mogul to live there!

“Come on in and join me for a drink,” she suggested in a smoky bedroom voice.

Entering her rental, I scanned the inventory, looking for a Scandinavian bookcase, probably in furu. Swedish pine. Heavy, yellow wood. I didn’t find it, so maybe this lady was legit after all. A lot of people hire me in April so they can list my expenses on their tax statement for the write-off. She wasn’t one of them. With those blood-red nails of hers, she seemed legit.

“I don’t drink when I’m on duty, ma’am.”

“Okay, detective, I now officially declare you off duty. A whiskey and branch water for me, please,” she told me, stalking me like prey, blowing smoke rings with every third word.

Looking at the drink tray, I thought I was going meatballs and bananas.

I liked the leprechaun green throw rug she was wearing. Not my style, but even I had to admit that on her, it looked good. “What’s with the glad rag?” I wondered.

“This?” she asked me, batting her eyebrows. “This old thing belonged to my grandmother. I only wear it for the sentimental value.”

Looking closer, I realized that the gold thread resembled real gold. Hmmm. There are some bad eggs in this town, but apparently she wasn’t one of them.  

“Take off your jacket and let’s get comfy,” she said, loosening her robe.

“I don’t fool around with clients, ma’am.”

“Okay, detective. You are now officially fired. I’m still waiting for that drink.”

Oh. Shit. I really needed the work.

She was leading me by the nose. The very next day, she telephoned me to say I was rehired and she wanted hourly updates. This was gonna be a long one. I once had a case that lasted 366 days, from a post-Oscar After Party one year to the Oscar Ceremony the next. I didn’t think the Case of the Runaway Bookcase was going to take a full year, but I had a whole rack of pens and several reams of paper suitable for transcribing bills. Days, hours, gas, incidentals. California state tax.

The day after that a man named Arthur Chromedaddy tracked me down to a film lot where I was pulling security outside the Ladies Room. “I saw your ad in the personal notices in the newspaper,” he told me. “I always check the classifieds. Where do you want the bookcase delivered?”

The damned thing had been off-loaded by mistake to a warehouse in San Pedro, 25 miles from downtown. Go figure.

I charged her for days, hours, gas, the newspaper notice, incidentals and California state tax. I squared her account with the police. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful Freundschaft. Not bad for a couple of days gumshoeing around the City of Angels.